The Reluctant Protoform
by cor tenebris
Summary: An unfortunate human from our universe, wakes up to a major set of problems. As a protoform, he must travel and survive in Cybertron while a civil war rages around him.
1. Chapter 1

The Reluctant Protoform

Chapter One: An Unwelcomed Surprise

Disclaimer: I don't own the Transformer franchise and this is nonprofit.

A lovely lady decked in flowers hands me a Pina colada with a smile. I grinned, taking a delicious sip of my fruity drink with glee, as I comfortably stand on the beach watching the waves.

**Boom… **

I wake up with a start, my eyes still closed and refusing to open.

**Boom… **

The loud noise vibrates through my body and motivates me into quickly opening my eyes. What the… instead of being safely tucked into my bachelor apartment twin bed, I appeared to be floating in space. What the fuck? Tiny stars twinkle around me; close yet far away.

**Boom… boom, thud, and whirl! **

Sounds like a big machine… wait a minute! How the hell can I hear sound in space? How the hell am I breathing?

By now I am ready to hyperventilate; this is not computing in the mind of a 20 year old guy who loves science and science fiction.

**Boom… **

Seriously, where is that sound coming from; if I had a glass of water, I would be in Jurassic Park. Two seconds later, I furiously wished that I didn't see what made that ghastly sound.

To my horror, a humongous robot that looked sort of like Satan was calmly walking towards me with a big menacing smile on its face. The long orange bull-like horns, orange dragonish wings, and white clawed hands powered the light bulb inside my mind: this is Unicron.

Oh… Hell… No…

I didn't pause to think about the fact that a highly fictional character was right in front of me or that the said alien could walk in space like he was on solid ground… I, Nate Pullman simply ran for my life in the opposite direction.

Pumping my legs rapidly and pacing out laborious breaths; two sneakers did the talking for me, screaming the entire way with noisy squeaks. Not turning to look back, the ominous thuds of Unicron's monstrous feet kept my fear fueled run burning brightly.

Looking desperately for a safe haven of any kind, empty space is the only answer. Running for what seemed like hours, I finally ran out of steam. Scared out of my wits, but wanting to see my end, I face Unicron bravely.

"**So you have finally stopped running pest. It is good to see that you have accepted your fate."**

One clawed hand reaches for me, only to stop and stare in the distance, the great fanged mouth snarls viscously, **"No!"**

The dark reaches of space become a blinding light in an instant and the weird space floor gives way underneath my feet.

"**I am Primus, your pursuit of destruction is over", a new calm voice declared.**

"**We shall see fool", Unicron sneered.**

As the two titans face off in what will surely be an epic battle, I continue to fall blindly through space; my vision blocked by flashing different colors as if I had stared directly at the sun for hours.

There were no sounds of battle or of anything at all, it was like falling down a bottomless pit in a horrible dream. It felt endless and the worst was yet to come. Falling through space had become cold almost to the point of hypothermia. Like a mirror yet to break into 7 pieces, my oxygen began to leave as well. It seemed that the laws of physics were slowly coming into play.

Scared beyond reasonable doubt, I wordlessly scream in panic as the last bit of oxygen is sucked into my dying lungs.

Now the only thing I can see is darkness…

Whirl, click, whimper… "Ugh" I moan in pain; my body feeling like I've just fallen headfirst into an unforgiving sidewalk traveling at the speed of light. Still in pain, but grateful to be alive, I try to take stock of my current situation. Eyes open to see a gray metal floor. The floor looks like it was once shiny, but various types of unidentifiable grime had made it lackluster.

Tired, I wearily raise myself onto my hands and knees looking around cautiously. It appears that my early comment about hitting the sidewalk was spot on; a massive crater gave testament to a hard landing.

How am I still alive?

Trying to stand up, my legs buckle under me; my rump hitting the floor with a thud, thus causing me to look at my legs and feet.

What the heck has happen to my body…and how did I not notice this earlier?

Instead of seeing beautiful healthy organic flesh, an unappreciated view of gray metal robotic legs and feet are burned into my corneas instead. Disturbed beyond measure, a hollowed out metal hole in the center of my torso brings me even closer to a major freak out via temporary loss of sanity. Remembering the faceless protoform bodies from Transformer Beast War, my growing panic transforms into a crazed 'is my face still there' test spree.

Wait… I have eyes; of course I would have a face… right?

One minute later…

Yep, I still have a face; now that's cleared up maybe I can find out where the hades I am.

Hands gripping the edge of the crater firmly, I carefully pull myself up and look over the edge.

The environment is slightly disgusting sight to see; transformers littered the ground by the dozens; pink fluid (energon I think) spilled everywhere. It wasn't really gory to me, spilled pink energon is not the same as blood in my mind; however, the thought that I was looking at dead bodies brings more than enough nausea.

Dirty buildings lay broken as rubbish over the sliver metal ground; various transformer bodies lay in pieces as if torn apart by dogs, others are intact with various holes, and some look as if they had been crushed under some large boot.

The sheer number of bodies mangled on the ground leaves me speechless, but only for a second. The Pullman sense of preservation kicks in, destroying horrified shock as my thoughts begin to run in high gear.

Quickly every detail of the predicament I'm in is noted: transformers check, metal ground check, more than one moon check, various tall buildings in the distance check, and final conclusion is that I have to be on Cybertron.

What to do now?

I guess I'll just wander in one direction and hopefully come upon autobot or something.

Looking at the distant skyscrapers, I set out on my lonely journey, not noticing until later that two red eyes were watching me… and they're definitely not friendly.


	2. Unexpected Dangers

The Reluctant Protoform

Chapter 2: Unexpected Danger

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers in any form or fashion. This was not written in an attempt to profit.

The alien skyscrapers in the distance seemed impossible to reach, but I kept on walking. For hours I walked towards my designation, the distant buildings no closer than before. Instead, more rubble and dead bodies greeted my vision; a lone tall post projecting cybertronian writing as I passed by.

As I walk by the dead, it becomes apparent that the bodies are styled like those in the War for Cybertron game.

Well, at least I know the continuity.

I gazed ahead, eyes alert for any danger; because honestly at any moment some crazed decepticon could hop out of the nearest pile of rubble.

Yeah right… at least I hope not.

From all the rubbish and the large number of bodies, I can surmise that this is a ruin of a city or town destroyed in a major battle. However that still doesn't tell me where the hell I am or when.

Hopefully, I can find an autobot or neutral that can clue me in on which part of the timeline I am unluckily in.

The sooner I figure out where I am, the quicker I can figure out a way to get out of here.

Rip…

The sudden sound; freezes me in place for a moment; after a couple minutes of looking around I decide that it was probably a piece of settling rubble.

Screech…

What the hell is that?

The screeching noise continued, sounding like it was coming closer.

Prudently, I found a hiding place, behind a large jagged piece of wall that miraculously was left standing.

Screech…

Peeking over the wall, the thing that is making such horrible screeching noises is…

Is that a turbo fox?

Carrying an enormous arm in its mouth?

… Okay, I didn't expect that.

The turbo fox resembled the fox from the Firefox logo, sharp jagged metallic plates forming an anti furry tail.

The screeching noise; however, came from having to partially drag the arm in its mouth, the huge appendix too heavy to carry properly.

The screeching came to an abrupt stop as the fox paused, its ears flicking as it looks around cautiously.

Behind the wall, I froze in place, feeling that any sudden motion or sound could focus the attention of the transformer eating fox to my presence.

I'm pretty sure that my bros would be mocking me right now saying "Don't worry Nate, it's just a fox, the animal is probably more afraid of you than you're afraid of it"

Ha!

If I see any kind of animal (I don't care if it's a bunny) carrying a bloody arm, then I'm going the other way… period.

Besides, that fox gives off a bad vibe… and then there's the fact that the darn fox is nearly as big as me; (from what I can tell my height is still human sized).

So I am walking on an alien war torn world where basically most of its denizens can squish me with ease.

Great…

"**Slag" **a deep voice cursed**.**

Whoa, I guess that's what the fox is hearing.

The canine twitches its ears again then takes off running like a predator was nipping at its tail.

Now I feel ashamed of being scared of the fox; the poor thing was scared of a loud voice, I think I just lost my man card.

"**I didn't get paid enough for this", **the mysterious owner of the voice complained.

I followed the direction of the noise carefully, wondering what faction the owner of the voice belonged to.

I arrived at the voice's origin just in time to see a dark gray transformer get pounced on by a black and purple spider with a red hourglass on its butt. The tips of its legs a golden color as the unfortunate victim was quickly pulled to wickedly sharp looking fangs.

Holy Shit…

Is that Animated Blackarachnia?

Why is she here in this Cybertron?

This is starting to make even less sense than it already did.

The spider's fangs pierced through the gray armor with ease, its eight legs releasing the body and throwing it to the ground like a piece of trash.

The energon now flowing rapidly from the puncture armor brought more attention to the emblem on its chest: the purple symbol of a decepticon.

Shocked and out in the open , I could only gulp as the spider's four blood red eyes locked on to me, its fangs dripping a clear white milky substance; its acidity burning holes into the dirty metal ground.

The stare down came to an abrupt end as the loud recognizable sound of a shotgun filed the air…

**Bang, bang!**

The rounds came out of nowhere, the impact forcing the black widow into the air and creating a painful landing on hard unforgiving metal with a sickening thud.

She landed on her back, her creepy legs sticking in the air twitching even as the shotgun fired again except from the opposite direction…

My direction…

I turned around only to meet a fist headed toward my face.

The next thing I see is stars then blackness…

I woke up to the feeling of movement like I'm aboard a car or ship.

My eyes were greeted with the vision of a dark metal cell, the opening covered by large metal bars that I can easily slip through. Directly across from me, Blackarachnia (at least I think that's her) is held in another cell, all eight legs held together by a bright blue energy band.

Once again four eyes bore into my face until I broke eye contact.

Carefully looking around the corner by fitting my head through the bars, I take a quick look around.

I can't see very far, but there is a cybertronian up front driving with its back towards me.

Stepping through the bars; about to try my luck, I stop when I hear loud voices.

"**Lockdown report"**, a cold emotionless voice ordered.

"**Shockwave, I have your lost test specimen prepped and ready for delivery. I have also found something that might interest you"**, Lockdown said with a hint of gleeful satisfaction.

"**Proceed."**

"**I found a protoform functioning in its basic form instead of being in stasis and it doesn't have a spark"**, Lockdown reported.

"**Interesting, have the protoform delivered as well. You have earned yourself a bonus"**, Shockwave vocalized; his creepy voice scaring the crap out of me.

Their conversation ends with their words echoing silently in my head.

I am going to ignore the fact that I'm sparkless and stupidly didn't notice until someone else pointed it out. That isn't important right now.

No, my only priority is to escape.

The only question is how.

I don't know how to read cybertronian (the writing in the ruins look like rubbish), so how will I be able to open a door or outrun Lockdown when the time comes?

Let be honest, I'm a juicy bonus and the greedy bounty hunter would probably sniff me out like a bloodhound.

I can't fight him; he's way out of my league…

Wait…

The spider has a chance; he must have attacked her in the back for a reason and from what I've seen so far she can pack a punch.

I have no choice; I'd rather die by spider bite than by dissection.

Let Operation Free the Spider begin…

Meanwhile as I unfortunately later find out, the turbo fox had not ran because it was scared of loud voices, but because it saw and sensed what I could not see: the red eyes.

Sadly for the canine, the running did not help; it only proved that turbo foxes are fun delicious snacks.

**Crunch, Crunch**.


End file.
